Dead Man

It's important to keep a cool head at all times and not do things reactively. Why am I saying this? I originally planned to write about the exhibition I went to at Hayward Gallery, but got distracted by my hot-headedness on that scratch-and-run gentleman. I just realised that I completely forgot about it until I was on the bus to the market this morning. Well then, isn't a composed mind an important state to attain?

(This is where art comes in; studying art helps one to reassess one's actions and intentions from a bystander's point of view. More funding for grassroot art studies, please! :p)

There were a lot of weird things in the gallery. It's a pity we weren't allowed to take pictures... I'm guessing the museum's management may want to milk some cash from its visitors through purchase of exhibition catalogues. Anyway, a work by the name of Nunhead was made from two crystal-encrusted BMW engines. The artist poured copper sulphate all over the engines, and consequently blue sapphire-like crystals grew on it. It's pretty cool... I guess I'll find some rotten engines and pour copper sulphate the next time I need some stones to make jewellery with ^^

[Interlude: I didn't go to BBC Proms this year. The fireworks can be seen and heard from my room, but I was a glutton. More explanation on this later.]

Another work that was captivating and personally liberating was done by Gustav Metzger, titled Historic Photograph: To Crawl Into - Anschluss, Vienna, March 1938. The work, a photograph printed on foamex and covered with cloth, was spread on the floor and was supposed to be seen by literally crawling into it. This guy's way of thinking is ingenuous as he successfully guides the viewer through his theme and evokes the kind of emotions he wants the viewer to experience. The way the artist delivered his work was somewhat similar to the kind of PK games Yaki used to play. In the end, Mag and I dared ourselves to get down and dirty 'the proper way', and we were laughing out loud when we came out. Everybody who went saw the work the way it is intended to be seen were laughing hard as we shared our experiences.

Now, about the BBC Proms (you can Google it up.) I was planning to go there, but I was still at home by 4PM... and chose to be a glutton instead. So I ended up meeting with Fi to have a huge dinner at Chinatown. Chinese food reminds me of ICM... hahaha... it used to be easily accessible and so affordable! Nowadays I can only have it once a week, or twice at most. There were a lot of stories and perspectives to be shared over dinner this evening. She turned out to have a sweet tooth! Yay! ^o^ Afterwards, we were clueless about what to do, so we decided to grind some pavement with our shoes (i.e. wander around town) as we weren't too keen on getting some desserts. Central London's a bit like Jakarta: always awake but can get a bit unsafe at night. Thank God nothing happened to us ^^

I also crashed the Portobello Market earlier today. It was a long strip of road compared to Camberwell Market's squarish layout, so it took me more time to explore the market than I expected. There were all sorts of cheap and expensive things. I happened to like a particular piece which is way out of my budget... which is sort of good, as I didn't have the ability to pay for it (and hence wouldn't blow my budget.) Sometimes inability to do something may prove to be a blessing in disguise after all... hehehe... I'll be coming back for it :p

Also, there's this interesting article about the battle against the adoption of iTunes as a portal of legal digital music distribution. It may prove to be a David-and-Goliath case in the near future. It makes me rethink my plans for paying for MP3s through iTunes. I don't think I will be using Weedshare though, as its MP3 coding may not be supported by SonyEricsson's proprietary music player program.

Finally, about the blog-posting time. I moved it to GMT, which means this post should really qualify as a Saturday post... we'll see whether it works.

Take care, have a good rest and happy Sunday to everybody else on the other side of the world!

I woke up from a dream about an empty funeral
But it's better than a party full of people I don't really know
Well, they've got hearts to break and burn, dirty hands to feel the earth
There's something in my veins but I can't seem to make it work
Won't work